Aida
Feminine · Arabic roots · “returning' or 'visitor' in Arabic”
Aida is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 13,777 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Aida is a name with two homes: the Arabic ʿĀʾida, in use for centuries, and the heroine of Verdi's opera, which premiered in Cairo in 1871 and carried the spelling into Italian, Spanish and English at once. Five letters, three syllables, and the same shape on the page in every language that uses it — ah-EE-dah, with the weight in the middle.
How old is the name Aida?
Aida first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Aida alive today was born around 1976, making them about 49 years old. About 11,500 people named Aida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Aida most popular?
Aida peaked in 1954, reaching #668 nationally. Today it ranks #1413, 745 places below that high. See the whole 1954 chart.
Aida appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From ʿĀʾida (Arabic) to Aida
The story of Aida
The Arabic ʿĀʾida is the older road: a feminine participle from the root ʿ-w-d, 'to return', long in use across the Arabic-speaking world. The second road opens in Cairo in December 1871, when Verdi's Aida premiered there and gave the spelling to European ears — its title character an Ethiopian princess held in Egypt. From the opera the name spread through Italy, Spain and Latin America as Aída, and it took separate root in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Arabic form arrived through Ottoman-era Muslim naming. The two lines have kept the same five letters throughout.
Meaningscholars disagree
'returning' or 'visitor' in Arabic; the opera heroine's name has its own separate history
The Arabic name عائدة (ʿĀʾida) comes from the root ʿ-w-d, 'to return', and is generally read as 'returning one' or 'visitor'. The name of Verdi's Ethiopian princess is not securely traced to that word, and its coinage for the 1871 libretto is not settled. Many families use the name in one tradition without reference to the other.
How the name formed
- ʿĀʾidaArabic
- AidaVerdi's opera, 1871
- AídaSpanish
- AidaEnglish
Related forms: عائدة · Aída · Aïda · Aida · Aida · Aída
Pronouncing Aida
ah-EE-duh
This is the standard reading in Arabic, Spanish, Italian and English alike, with the stress on the middle syllable. A minority of English speakers say AY-duh, on the model of Ada, so expect to correct that occasionally. The Spanish accent in Aída marks the same stressed syllable.
Nicknames for Aida
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 2005243 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #668reached in 1954
- Change vs 2022
- −21.4%154 in 2025, from 196
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Aida in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- عائدة in Arabic — transliteration
- Aída in Spanish — spelling variant
- Aïda in French — spelling variant
- Aida in Bosnian — same name
- Aida in Italian — same name
- Aída in Portuguese — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Aidas among us
people named Aida are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,437 born in 2025 was named Aida
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Aida
- #1413
- Aida on the 2025 chart
- #720
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Aida went to 154 girls in 2025, but Ayda, Aydah and Aidah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 242, which makes it the 720th most-given girls’ name of the year — 693 places above the chart.
- Aida154
- Ayda74
- Aydah8
- Aidah6
About 1 girl in 6,642 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,437 for Aida itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jacquelin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Aida's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jacquelin climbed just as high around 1931, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jacquelin's path sketches the road Aida is walking now.
Aida sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Aida is headed
Aida should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Aida beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Aida in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled identically in Arabic transliteration, Bosnian, Italian, Spanish, French and English — it travels without needing to change.
- On US records continuously since the nineteenth century, so it is familiar to registrars and teachers without being a name every classroom has.
- Three clear syllables built from common sounds, easy for young children to say and to write.
- Ida, already a standalone name, sits inside it as a ready short form.
- Two pronunciations circulate in English — ah-EE-duh and AY-duh — so a brief correction will be part of life. Saying it once usually settles it.
- The opera connection is strong and lifelong: some people will mention Verdi, hum the triumphal march, or ask if you are opera-goers. It is a tragedy, and the heroine dies sealed in a tomb, which a few will bring up.
- In Spanish it is properly Aída with an accent; US forms and databases often drop it, which bothers some families more than others.
- Close in sound and spelling to Ada, Ayda and Aidan, so occasional mix-ups on rosters and forms are likely.
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What they receive
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Aida
Feminine · Arabic roots · #1413 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Aidas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,500 people named Aida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Aida?
- Aida is the most-used spelling in US records — 154 of the 242 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Ayda, Aydah and Aidah.
- How popular is the name Aida in 2025?
- Aida ranks #1413 among US girl names in 2025, with 154 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Aida?
- About 1 in every 10,437 US girls born in 2025 was named Aida — 154 in all.
- Will my child share the name Aida with classmates?
- Aida will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Aida
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Charm#1413 · Addyson#1413 · Emryn#1413 · Marlie#1417 · Kailey#1417 · Korra#1417 · Georgiana#1417 · Haylee#1417
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Aida? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Aida and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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